Received from: RMT
Congress notes the change in Labour leadership provides an opportunity to deliver a new political and economic strategy that works for the mass of working people.
Congress agrees that economic and political power is too concentrated and welcomes discussion of the need to build an active, productive state to lower the cost of living, control the essentials of life, support reindustrialisation and foster growth across the UK.
Congress believes that to counter the threat of Reform and the far right this new strategy must avoid taking the country into divisive debates around both nationalism and EU/single market membership and instead focus on a program to unite working people in not only hope, but also delivery of a better future.
Congress therefore calls on the General Council to lobby the government to pursue this strategy by campaigning to:
i. empower working people through ensuring that the maximum possible flexibility in the use of state aid, fiscal policy, investment, public ownership and procurement and protection of manufacturing is not adversely restricted by Treasury rules or any future trading relationships. For example, Congress notes single market membership would reverse the UK’s progress to rail public ownership
ii. develop the importance of the UK’s trading relationship with the EU and the world economy to improve trade, while respecting the democratic will expressed in the result of the 2016 referendum on EU membership
iii. deliver a mass council house building programme, including through a publicly owned housing corporation
iv. implement mandatory sectoral bargaining across the economy.
National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers